General Rajaxx
General Information *Level: ?? Boss *Location: Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj in Silithus *Type: Not specified Background The mighty Qiraji known as General Rajaxx commands the Qiraji armies in battle. He was described in the War of the Shifting Sands as "a towering monstrosity, swinging clawed limbs, looming over all and always shouting commands to the insect soldiers of Qiraji and Silithid during battle." He is currently a boss found in the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. He is commonly thought to be Ragnaros's equal or greater in physical size. Abilities This is not a traditional fight. Before you actually fight Rajaxx, you must defeat an entourage of his War ranks, each with a pack of mobs. Each wave consists of an Officer (a mini-boss) and a varying mix of Swarmguard Needlers and Qiraji Warriors. There are seven waves before Rajaxx: Wave 1: Center - *'Captain Qeez' - Intimidating Shout. *Swarmguard Needler x2 - Qiraji Warrior x4 Wave 2: Left side - *'Captain Tuubid' - Marks a person with "Attack Order" debuff that causes the mobs to aggro that person. *Swarmguard Needler x3 - Qiraji Warrior x3 Wave 3: Right side - *'Captain Drenn' - AoE lightning spell (Hurricane). *Swarmguard Needler x5 - Qiraji Warrior x1 Wave 4: Further left - *'Captain Xurrem' - Shockwave (AOE knockdown). *Swarmguard Needler x3 - Qiraji Warrior x3 Wave 5: Further right - *'Major Yeggeth' - Blessing of Protection, 900 damage cleave (against tank). *Swarmguard Needler x4 - Qiraji Warrior x2 Wave 6: Deep left side - *'Major Pakkon' - Sweeping Slam. *Swarmguard Needler x2 - Qiraji Warrior x4 Wave 7: Deep right side - *'Colonel Zerran' - Magic-dispellable enlarge on him self and the Swarmguards / Warriors causing more melee damage. *Swarmguard Needler x3 - Qiraji Warrior x3 General Rajaxx - Has two important abilities worth noting here: *AoE Thunder Clap that cuts everyone's hitpoints in half (200 minimum damage) and wipes aggro. *A single target deaggro, where he yells "You are not worth my time, ." and changes to a new target. Weaknesses Swarmguard Needlers and Qiraji Warriors can be frozen, feared, rooted, and stunned. Taking advantage of these crowd control methods can allow a raid to divide or disable the enemy for easier handling. For example, a raid may disable or delay Qiraji Warriors while the deadly but fragile Swarmguard Needlers are eliminated, as well as allowing a raid to quickly kill sub-bosses with particularly dangerous abilities such as Tuubid and Drenn. Strategy thumb|Swarmguard Needler thumb|Qiraji Warrior With Kurinnaxx dead, a human NPC will spawn. DON'T TALK TO HIM. It will start the event, so let the main tank speak with him when ready. General Rajaxx is an extremely long fight, so the only option for this battle is to conserve mana. Once Kurinnaxx is dead, 5 NPCs will spawn: Lieutenant General Andorov and 4 Kaldorei Elite. These NPCs will aid you in the battle to and against Rajaxx, so make sure you keep them alive. They can be healed and given a Mark of the Wild and an Earth Shield. You can also buff them with single paladin buffs. Once you talk to the Lt. General, he will make a dramatic speech (Courtesy of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie Commando), walk to the front, and start the event. So make sure you've distributed loot from Kurinnaxx and everyone is ready for the fight before talking to the Lt. General. *Lt. General heals the entire raid for 200 hitpoints every 3 seconds, and increases casting speed and attack power by 10%. This makes the fight a lot easier. Healers can focus on healing Lt. General and tanks while DPS gets some very good healing. The Lt. General will cast the buff on everyone in the raid who is friendly or higher with Cenarion Circle and is PvP flagged (not confirmed for the Horde). *The healing aura provided by Lieutenant General Andorov is increased by the mage buff Amplify Magic. This can be used to increase the healing on the raid to 350 healing per 3 seconds (or 425 healing if the mage who cast the buff has talent points invested in improving the spell). The downside of taking more damage from spells is not a concern on this fight since all damage is physical except for Drenn's hurricane. The way you work each wave is simple: When they come running into the room, have a warrior pull them back a little and then have a warlock start the chain fearing process. Druids will try to get one target each that they will hold rooted, and to help gain control, mages should also use frost nova. The Lt. General and Kaldorei Elite should automatically jump on a target so make sure you heal them when necessary. The NPCs can be hard to target and most healers will find a macro ("/target lieu") to be helpful. Once all the mobs are feared, the MT should grab the captain quickly, otherwise he might attack healers. Killing the mini-bosses first may be advisable, as every other mob can be held feared, rooted or frozen. After the captain is down, get a hunter's mark on a cleaver, than kill each one by one. After you are rid of the cleavers take out the warriors, and make sure you have every other mob feared or rooted. When there is only one warrior left, Alliance can cast judgement of wisdom or just kill the mob very slowly (if you are horde) to gain mana for the next wave of mobs. Once the first wave is down, or if you've run out of time (3 minutes), the next wave will start making its way to you. Basically, you follow the same plan as before. Note: Patch 1.11 shortened the time between waves. Captain Drenn, otherwise known as the third captain, is particularly challenging. He casts an AoE lightning attack that does about 700 damage a hit making him a high priority target. When this third wave comes in, the captain usually casts his AoE around the Lt. General and aggros him. This presents a problem because the MT has to keep the captain in constant motion, exactly like Kurinnaxx. The Lt. General usually pulls the captain off the MT many times, so you have to heal him. While this is going on, warlocks, priests, and other warriors have to keep fear up on cleavers and qiraji warriors or the raid is going to be dead fast. Once the captain is dead, you can start taking down cleavers, and then warriors. Because of the severity of the fight, don't hold back on healing. The rest of the waves are generally the same as the first two, so you have enough time to get back to full mana before Rajaxx. Once you've finished all the waves, General Rajaxx will make his way to you. Everyone needs to have their backs to the wall to the left of the gate, as Rajaxx' Thunder Clap would otherwise send everyone flying around the entire room, making it much harder for the tank. The MT needs to fight for aggro with Andorov and try to time taunts as the Lieutenant is very good at aggro-stealing. Having the Lt. General tank is a bad idea because he can't take a lot of damage. After a sunder or two DPS can be started. Alternatively you can allow Andorov to be the tank, thanks to the fact that he is immune to the knockback component of Rajaxx's AoE. This works best when healers position themselves in one of the small nooks in the wall, which prevents knockback, allowing them to heal Andorov from a stable position. This strategy however is very mana intensive for the healers because it forces them to cast so many heals to keep Andorov's HP up, and many heals will be wasted. An advantage is that due to Andorov's firm lock on aggro this is where nearly all heals can be directed (an off-tank can stand by for when Rajaxx says that Andorov is wasting his time and changes targets), and for the most part the positioning only matters for Rajaxx, Andorov, the off-tank, and the healers. The thing about Rajaxx's AoE knockback is that it cuts your health in half (100 nature damage minimum). If you have 6000hp, you lose 3000, if you have 500, you lose 250, so no worries unless you are below 100hp. Lt. General is immune to Rajaxx's knockback attack. Rajaxx can kill him in very short order, so healers should be focusing their heals on him and the tank. Most casters and DPS can be ignored until their health falls below 500 health. Having the Kaldorei Elite alive significantly adds to the raid's dps, so healing them is useful as well. Rajaxx can kill them very quickly, so if one attracts Rajaxx's attentions spam your fastest healing spells on him. The fight is the same all the way through, so just keep people up and the fight is easy. It is still possible to take Rajaxx if the NPCs are dead, though it is a longer and different fight. At least two tanks are necessary, one standing against a wall with the rest of the raid, and the main tank holding Rajaxx away from the raid. The tank standing near the raid is there to taunt Rajaxx and pull him back out to the main tank if he heads toward the raid. Because the Lt. General is not alive to hold Rajaxx, the aggro wipe caused by Rajaxx's thunderclap means that the next person who does anything will gain aggro. Because it takes a moment for the tanks to get back aggro, no DoTs or HoTs should be used. Because everyone but the tank has low health through most of the fight, anyone gaining aggro will likely die in one hit. If the NPCs are still up once you've killed Rajaxx, you can wait a few minutes and they will despawn and give you 150 reputation with Cenarion Hold. You can also pull mobs to them and let them take care of business while you wait for them to despawn. Tip. At the two first waves, have a mage standing at the entrance once you have pulled the mobs, he will use frost nova if some mobs are running into the room where they came from. This is to prevent them from pulling another group. Players should be wary about using too much fear during the first two waves, as they can wander into other inactive waves causing them to trigger early. Paladins The Alliance undoubtedly has an advantage in this fight over the Horde. This is due to the availability of Paladins with their Judgement of Wisdom ~ simply lower DPS on the last mob of every wave and have a Paladin Judgement of Wisdom on that mob and have all casters wand to top-off their mana bars. Another suggestion that might help with keeping the NPCs alive: press 'V' to show NPC health bars (though it's only visible at a limited range). As of patch 1.12 you will need to bind a hotkey to show friendly health bars in the key bindings menu. (Shift-V is the default hotkey for this.) Quotes * "The time of our retribution is at hand! Let darkness reign in the hearts of our enemies!" * "No longer will we wait behind barred doors and walls of stone! No longer will our vengeance be denied! The dragons themselves will tremble before our wrath!" * "Fear is for the enemy! Fear and death!" * "Staghelm will whimper and beg for his life, just as his whelp of a son did! One thousand years of injustice will end this day!" * "Fandral! Your time has come! Go and hide in the Emerald Dream and pray we never find you!" * "Impudent fool! I will kill you myself!" * "Soon you will know the price of your meddling, mortals... The master is nearly whole... And when he rises, your world will be cease!" * "Warriors! Captains! Continue the fight!" Reward Reputation: *140 with Cenarion Circle at Friendly. *150 with Cenarion Circle if Lieutenant General Andorov survives. *35 with Brood of Nozdormu at Hated. Patch 1.10.1 Changes This fight has changed somewhat, first off if someone dies they are no longer able to return via release and run back, there is a big door that closes and you cannot get past it. Second, the strategy to NOT talk to the NPCs before you start the fight, and just call them at the end to help with Rajaxx himself no longer works, as soon as you pull the Lieutenant General runs in with his group and starts to fight, and actually Blizzard even goofed that, if you pull before talking to the NPCs, the NPCs run right past the first wave and wait at the door for them. The NPCs now have a limited area in which they will fight, which is basically the small alcove in front of Rajaxx's room. Any mobs feared/entangled/stunned/frozen in Kurinnaxx's room will not be dealt with by the NPCs. This can lead to problems since, for some reason, if the NPCs are idle for more than 30 seconds, they will call out the next wave. Because of this, it is best to try and kill as many mobs as you can under 3 minutes (exceeding the 3 minute mark will result in the next wave) while keeping one rooted or CCed out of the range of the NPCs. Have someone with a timer announce when 20 seconds are up, in which case the CC should be broken and the mob dragged back to the NPCs. You will want to keep as many people alive as possible throughout the waves. To be fair, the needlers don't even hit that hard and can be DPSed down very quickly, likewise with the warriors. When Rajaxx himself comes, he will periodically teleport people onto the battleground. Depending on how well your warriors can pick up aggro and a bit of luck, Rajaxx will teleport someone in and completely ignore them. Other times, he will two-shot them and continue. The method for getting teleported is debatable. One thing that seems to have consistently worked is bandaging yourself and others to produce healing aggro. In some cases, failing to complete the fight and returning the next day will break the event. The Lieutenant General and his NPC guards will not spawn, and the 7 waves of mobs will not have spawned, leaving the raid to deal solely with Rajaxx. Fighting Rajaxx without the help of any NPCs can be difficult. In this case, Rajaxx can be dropped by positioning the entire raid against the wall in a corner of the arena to minimize the AoE knockback, while the MT holds Rajaxx far enough away to allow all ranged attacks (including hunters). The raid should lightly DPS Rajaxx throughout the fight, making sure to stop all DPS for a few seconds after the knockback, in order for the MT to maintain the greatest amount of aggro. Without any of the adds, you can also sneak by Rajaxx towards Moam or Buru. Patch 1.12 Changes You CAN run back after dying. Apparently you will not be allowed into the instance on any wave if the Named for that wave is not dead (Qeez, Tuubid, Drenn, Xurrem, Yeggeth, Pakkon, Zerran, Rajaxx) -- you will rez outside of the instance portal and not be allowed in until the named is dead. Once inside, you have until the next wave is called to be put into combat, so you can drink/eat to full health/mana or mount up to get back to the fight faster -- sometimes both. If you fail to re-enter the portal, make sure to back away from it before trying to return. Auto-running against the barrier will not cause you to zone in. Even if backing away and running forward fails to work, you should still see the load screen for a moment and a message in your chat log indicating failure - this at least means you're doing it right. Also the NPCs respawn now with a timer of 15 minutes after a wipe. Scripting Bugs There are several known bugs for this fight. Bug 1 Respawn Trigger: Unknown (rumored to trigger when Players standing on hills, unconfirmed and unlikely) Wave Number: Any Description: All previous Waves repop and run in at once Solution: Having multiple Waves at once is pretty much a guaranteed wipe.The only recommendation I have is maximize Crowd Control and hope. Bug 2 Fight stops Trigger: Unknown (rumored that this occurs when NPCs bug and stand at the door, Unconfirmed) Wave Number: Any but seems most common on Wave 3 or 4 Description: Fight simply stops. A wave is cleared and the next does not come. Solution: Two solutions are possible: Pull next wave or wait it out. We attempted Pulling the next wave and got two waves at once, however, we waited a long time trying to decide whether to pull or not. Zeph: We waited and the wave came, BUT the last wave came WITH the Boss. Strongly suggest pulling the group on the right on the path between you and boss rather then waiting. Kierjan: As long as you pull the next wave in the order, quickly enough; the fight will continue as normal without a hitch. Bug 3 NPCs stop Trigger: Any time all bugs are outside of the NPCs aggro range. Their range is rather limited. (Confirmed) Wave Number: Any Description: The NPCs run to their position at the door and just stand there. Unfortunately, this also cancels the Lieutenant General's Healing Buff! (Rumored that this can cause them to either pull the next wave or cause Bug 2, unconfirmed) Solution: (Confirmed) Pull one of the mobs to them. Bug 4 Easy Evade Trigger: Pulling a Mob to the hills. (Confirmed) Wave Number: Any Description: Mobs will evade if pull up a hill. Solution: (Confirmed) Pull the mob off. If the Lieutenant General is on the hill it will take some work, but is still possible. External Links * Bosskillers *AmpWoW - Strategy - Videos Rajaxx, General Rajaxx, General Rajaxx, General Rajaxx, General